We are brought up reading about fairytale weddings, watching them on TV, where nothing goes wrong, the bride looks perfect and everyone has a super time. The behind-the-scenes goings-on at most weddings are not discussed in the open too often, although some reality shows have brought light into the subject. What you won’t hear about is that there will always be variables you cannot account for, and even with the “perfect” plan, these may very well be the reason for a ruined wedding.

As the bridal couple, you need to understand that things will go wrong no matter how well you have planned your wedding. But because your guests don’t know what you had planned in the first place, they won’t even realize that there are things that are going wrong.

The chapel could be overlooked when the florist places the flowers. Your best friend’s date might drink himself into a frenzy. The dogs will take a chunk out of the wedding cake because your mom left the door open to the room she was storing it in. Your train will have a hole in it because you put the chair on it when you sat down for a while before walking down the aisle. The caterer will have changed the menu at the last moment due to missing ingredients. Your pesky nephew will ruin every photo take by trying to jump in every single one or the bartender will have forgotten to stock up on your boss’s favourite drink. There have been outdoor weddings that have been rained out with weather that wasn’t supposed to start for the next two months, weddings where the priest was an hour late, and weddings where someone knocked over the cake before the reception even started. Some couples,instead of the honeymoon suite, were booked the smallest room in the hotel and by the time they realized this, the honeymoon suite was already occupied by another couple.

The bridal party, and in particular, the bride and her mother, could let this type of incident ruin an otherwise perfect occasion. The best advice is to take a deep breath, smile and move on instead of stressing over details that are no longer under your control. Don’t let one incident ruin months of planning, or affect the rest of your day or night.

These things happen even though you might not actually hear about them. Another thing that people fail to tell you about weddings is despite these ill-fated incidents, couples still managed to get married eventually. Anyone not involved in the planning phase will not even notice most of these problems, and no one will think less of you for not foreseeing these situations. Most, if not all, of them will enjoy the reception, have a good time and think to themselves, “What a lovely wedding”. You should also try to do exactly just that.